This invention relates to bale wagons of the form having tables movable to transfer tiers of bales from the tables on to load beds on which the accumulated tiers form stacks of bales. More specifically, this invention deals with apparatus which permits the bale wagon to form compact, stable stacks of bales on the load bed under sidehill and hilly operating conditions.
In such bale wagons bales are pickd up from the ground and placed on a bale receiving table to form a layer. A complete layer is transferred to a transfer table by pivotal movement of the receiving table and subsequent layers are added to the transfer table to form a tier of bales. The tier of bales is then transferred to the load bed by pivotal movement of the transfer table. One such bale wagon is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,119,218, issued Oct. 10, 1978, which discusses the problems experienced in maintaining the bales of the foremost tier, i.e. the bales of the tier most recently transferred to the load bed, in a stable condition on the load bed. This problem, which is particularly marked when the bale wagon is working on uneven or hilly terrain, has been addressed by providing bale retaining fingers which rest on the top bales of the foremost tier. The added weight imparted to the foremost tier of bales by the bale retaining fingers has lessened somewhat the likelihood of the bales bowing or slipping one on the next, but has not prevented the lowermost bales of the foremost tier slipping longitudinally on the load bed. The load bed is normally made of a smooth surfaced metal. Such slippage inevitably causes the stack of bales to be less compact and may even cause the tier to slip completely off the load bed, resulting in disruption to the automatic operation of the bale wagon.
This problem is solved, according to the present invention, by a bale wagon comprising bale pick-up means for lifting bales from the ground, a table on to which the lifted bales are transferred, a load bed, the table being movable between a bale loading position and a bale unloading position, in which latter position bales are transferred to the load bed to form a stack of bales comprising a plurality of tiers of bales, and bale retaining means movable between an operative position in which the retaining means engage the underside of each of the lowermost bales of the foremost tier on the load bed, and an inoperative position clear of the underside of the lowermost bales, the bale retaining means occupying the operative position when the table is in the bale loading position and the inoperative position when the table is in the bale unloading position.